I gave birth on Mother’s Day and it was insane
TW for multiple medical scenarios
For some backstory I’m 36yrs old, high risk for hypertension (just good ol high blood pressure, no preeclampsia or gestational), as well as history of blood clots and pulmonary embolisms. Also, I was set to be induced on 05/19 with an EDD of 06/03
(Also I am married into a family of medical professionals, my husband and everyone else is hyper vigilant and on top of things)
It was Friday night and I knew something was already off because I wanted to lay at the foot of the bed closer to our box fan and that’s where I ended up falling asleep. Oh also, at the time I was 36 weeks + 2 along.
Around 3am I woke up just feeling off, like I was hot and weak all over and wanted to just vomit. I couldn’t shake the feeling and had actually experienced the same thing about a month or so earlier (landed me in the hospital for high BP spikes). So I took a collection of BP readings that peaked with 164/119 before heading into L&D.
Once I got back into triage and touched the bed, I vomited right into the emesis bag I had with me and filled it up. It was safe to say that my blood pressure was acting up again despite me taking my scheduled labetalol 200mg 2x a day. Medical staff said that I was staying and that since I was so far along to just go ahead and plan for an early induction bc BP was not wanting to stabilize despite their medical efforts. I had already ran this same drill about 2x before this event so unfortunately I wasn’t shocked upon hearing this but part of me was still wanting to at least try to do this vaginally.
Skip past all the cytotec, cervical checks, mag drip (that made me feel drunk and hungover at the same time), and start of pitocin. Even had the foley balloon put in which was super uncomfortable but I talked through it with my husband as a force of distraction. This was all before the epidural.
The epidural is where things went kinda off track for me. The install of the epidural itself wasn’t so bad but I did not enjoy the feeling of the catheter not threading properly and then hearing about it from the anesthesiologist lol. I swore I could feel it etching my vertebrae and I just wanted to crawl away. I was kind of like “shhh shh just do it and get it over with”. So hunching over and waiting for that little hang up to resolve itself was the peak of my stress for me up until that moment.
About 5 minutes into the epidural finally settling in ..my BP crashes. I mean low- low to the point where things began to sound muffled around me, I start shaking uncontrollably and get cold, and now my lowest reading is 87/64. And while this can be normal for some individuals, for me who has had high BP this entire pregnancy, that number was not good at all. I can’t tell you what was happening around me bc I was just trying to focus and stay driven for the end goal. But I will say my room filled up with every nurse and med staff that was available at that time and things instantly went into overdrive. The beautiful medical lingo was flowing around me and I had 0 idea of what was going on other than my BP was dropping and now…so was baby’s. My husband is a nurse so if I ever wanted a quick reference of severity to the situation I would just take a quick glance at his face and read his expression lol. I will say he played it off very stoically at the time. They pushed some meds to get baby’s heart rate back up and gave me a shot in my arm to slow the pitocin down, they also dropped the epidural level so it wouldn’t keep dragging baby’s hr down. It took a while but they got it under control. It was terrifying though and I won’t lie.
Once things settled and the room cleared out. Things continued as normal. Pitocin doing its thing, epidural was going but not as strongly as before and now we were working on different positions to lay in to help baby drop bc he was still a little too high. One weird turn on my left side had me audibly going “oops” out loud because I felt and heard the loudest pop come from inside of me followed by a release of pressure and fluid. My water broke and for some reason, that moment was so official and emotional.
Once again though, baby did not like that and his HR started to drop again. I guess I lost too much fluid and now it was causing issues. So they inserted an amnioinfusion catheter through my cervix to put fluid back into the area to relieve pressure off the cord for baby.
That move, along with some other crazy yoga-type positions helped wrap this super long process up because despite having an epidural, I could feel everything in my vaginal region. External and internally. Only my abdomen was getting relief. So I could feel the pain and pressure of needing to push coming on and fast. Time and events went on and we eventually got catheters taken out and I was able to push baby out in about 5 pushes and definitely less than 20 minutes worth of pushing. I felt the ring of fire I felt the intensity and yet it was the most empowering thing ever. I didn’t rip or tear and I was able to help catch him and bring him up to me and carry on with the rest of the delivery
He’s currently resting on me as I type this out and we are both so exhausted. He was born on Mother’s Day at 9:47am at 5lbs 10oz. I lost my mother back in 2013 which was one year before my first child was born. So now, this day has grown even more significant for me.
I share this not to sway or scare but only to just give a random perspective from one woman’s eyes of what her journey was like.
If you read this far, thank you for your time and you’ve got this. Stay strong out there.